View full sizeThomas Boyd, The OregonianKenny Cooper prepares dinner with his fiancee, Molly Grimm, whom he credits with helping him through a difficult midseason slump.

Oblivious to the damp and blustery fall day rustling around him, Kenny Cooper walks from his Pearl District condo and into a nearby coffee shop, and immediately begins selling sunshine.

Never mind the tumult and scrutiny the Portland Timbers star has weathered in his topsy-turvy season: The monumental 14-game scoring drought. The public dust-up with coach John Spencer. His subsequent benching.

He's selling sunshine, so his baby blues sparkle and his pearly whites shine as he talks not of those dark days of the summer, but rather of the glow of where he and the Timbers are today. He says he is grateful the Timbers signed him and entrusted him to be their marquee player in their inaugural season. It is a privilege, he says, to play for the team's fans. And he says he is honored to be coached by Spencer.

At first blush, his words come across as politically-correct clichés. A bunch of blah, blah, blah from an athlete avoiding the heart of the matter.

But upon deeper examination, Cooper is not selling sunshine. He is sunshine, right down to those eyes and ever-present smile.

For Spencer, the intense and edgy coach with a tongue salty enough to make Cooper blush, it quickly became apparent just how nice his prized offensive player was.

View full sizeThomas Boyd, The OregonianKenny Cooper celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal to put the Timbers ahead against San Jose Sept. 21. The game at Jeld-Wen Field ended in a 1-1 draw.

"Too nice," Spencer said bluntly when Cooper's kindness was broached. "Sometimes as a forward, you need to be a bit of a ruthless bastard at times. You can't play the game the way you live your life. You need to be a different character once you step over the white line."

Spencer relayed that to Cooper during his scoreless streak, although Cooper said it was much more colorful and spicy than Spencer's version recounted earlier this week. He wanted him to strike the ball more often. Smash into opponents more often. Worry more about getting off his shot than setting up teammates.

Cooper said he took Spencer's advice to heart, but he's not sure if it explains his recent run of three goals in the past four games, which has spearheaded the Timbers' late-season surge into the Major League Soccer playoff picture.

His hot scoring stretch, and the Timbers' playoff hopes, will be put to the test Friday night against Houston in the season's final regular season game at Jeld-Wen Field. A victory would move the Timbers into a tie with Houston with 43 points for the 10th and final playoff spot.

"He's definitely answered the call for goals at the most important time of the year," Spencer said.

To understand what an important development Cooper's hot stretch is, keep in mind this was not just any forward scuffling through a season before finding his groove. This was Kenny Cooper, the guy whose name and reputation in MLS is matched only by his huge 6-foot-3 frame.

He was the guy the Timbers were counting on, and paying handsomely, to give them respectability and firepower, the type of stuff that earned him an invite to famed Manchester United organization as a youth, and later helped him become one of the more prolific MLS scorers, like in 2008 in Dallas, when he was neck-and-neck with L.A. Galaxy star Landon Donovan for the league's Golden Boot award before finishing with 18, two behind Donovan.

So this season, by the time his scoreless streak hit 10 games, then 11, then 12, 13, 14, there were grumblings in the stands and rumblings of trade rumors wafting through the office of general manager Gavin Wilkinson. Even the once familiar serenade from the Timbers Army started to sound a little blurred: Were those "Cooop!" calls like always, or were there some boos mixed in?

The tension came into full bloom in May when Cooper was stonewalled at home on consecutive penalty kicks against DC United. The referee ruled both times that DC keeper Bill Hamid left the goal line early, awarding a new penalty kick. For the third kick, however, Spencer ordered Jack Jewsbury to replace Cooper, much to Cooper's dismay.

Suddenly, Mr. Nice Guy was not selling sunshine. In a moment when Cooper says he doesn't know what he was thinking, he began to bark at Spencer on the sideline in protest of being replaced.

"I still feel bad about that," Cooper said softly, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Jewsbury scored, but the Timbers lost, and after Spencer addressed the team, Cooper stood up and apologized to Spencer and his teammates. Four games later, when his scoreless streak reached eight games, Spencer benched the team's $267,500 player, the second-highest paid guy on the team.

"He just wasn't playing that well," Spencer reasoned. "I don't think anybody on any club should be above getting left off the squad. He wasn't playing to the best of his abilities and he wasn't confident. Players were doing better than him."

Cooper said there's no one reason why he struggled in the midseason. Some of it probably had to do with working himself back into game shape after missing nearly a year with a broken right ankle. Some of it had to do with bad luck – balls going off the crossbar, goals disallowed because of an offsides or because the pass was ruled out of bounds.

"Sometimes this game can be a matter of inches between success and no success, between scoring and not scoring," Cooper said.

After four games on the bench, he got his starting spot back in fluke fashion: His replacement, Eddie Johnson, was hit in the head in pregame warmups against the Galaxy. The next game, Cooper scored against San Jose, and his season started to rebound.

In games Cooper has scored, the Timbers are 4-1-2.

Can it be that sunshine doesn't sell on the pitch? That nice guys finish last?

Cooper would rather think his turnaround has more to do with his perseverance and hard work and the support from his family and fiancee, Molly Grimm, whom he will marry in January.

"I do want to be a nice person, but I'm also competitive and I want to win," Cooper said. "And I know that being nice isn't always the best way of going about things. I like to think that I can have a good balance of getting the best out of myself and being a good teammate."

Truth be told, the whole nice-guy knock is a bit unfair, for it takes away from Cooper's unmistakeable assets: his great size, his strong striking with either foot, and that certain "it" that scorers have and that can produce highlight goals like last week's cross from 21 yards out at Vancouver. It was voted "Goal of the Week" by MLSsoccer.com.

Still, he acknowledges that Spencer reached him and his advice has helped, prompting him to "pull the trigger" more often and quicker.

"He's never given up on me, which I appreciate so much," Cooper said. "It's my hope in these last three games that I can repay all the great faith he has shown in me."

Spencer and the Timbers will buy some of that sunshine. -- Jason Quick